Buell, Elijah

BUELL, STRONG

Posted By: Elysa Hobein Wallingford (email)
Date: 2/17/2003 at 02:11:54

PORTRAIT & BIOGRAPHICAL ALBUM OF CLINTON COUNTY, IOWA 1886 (CHAPMAN BROS.)  Containing full page portraits & biographical sketches of prominent and representative citizens of the county. (Also available on FHL film 1036331 Item 9)
ELIJAH BUELL
Among the old pioneers of Clinton County, who yet live to tell of the trials and difficulties through which they passed in aiding to develop the county, and who through their own energy and perseverance have accumulated goodly portions of this world's goods and are now enabled to ? from the ? labor of life upon well-earned competencies, is the subject of this biographical notice who is a resident of Lyons.
Mr. Buell was born April 1, 1801, in Utica, Oneida Co., N. Y., and, coming here in 1835, has been closely connected with the growth of Clinton County since that time. The parents of our subject were Jeptha and Rachel (Strong) Buell, natives of New York and Connecticut respectively. His father was a ship carpenter, and in 1810 removed to Adams, Jefferson Co., N. Y., and there settled on a fifty-acre tract of timber land. He at once began its improvement, and there erected a log cabin and continued to reside for two years. He was a soldier in the War of 1812, and, participating in the battle of Nacketts Harbor, received a wound in the knee. Returning home, the following year he passed from earth, and after his death his good wife, with her children, moved to Cleveland, Ohio.
It was in the latter city that Elijah Buell engaged his services to a Mr. Bronson, who resided in Twinsburg Township, southeast of Cleveland, in the Western Reserve, and assisted him to clear the first land in that township, and also to erect the first cabin that was built there. Returning to Cleveland, our subject fell in with a bookbinder, and with him went to Buffalo, where he remained for one year working in a bookbindery. At 17 years of age Mr. Buell boarded the brig Union, on Lake Erie, and followed that business for some years on the lake, being in the employ of Mervin, Giddins & Co. In 1823 he went overland on foot from Cleveland to Pittsburg, and there he went on the Powhattan, and for three years and three months worked on that boat, first as deck-hand for three months and then as First Mate. This boat entered the Lower Mississippi River and New Orleans trade. He remained on her during the winter, and in the spring he came back by way of Wellsburg, on the Ohio River, and to the lakes at Cleveland, and there engaged as pilot on the schooner Marion. He was the first navigator who ever went through to Lake Huron, Sault Ste. Marie, thence to Mackinaw and Green Bay, which posts were established by the Government, and his boat had the contract to furnish the Government supplies; it also had a contract to deliver cargoes of shelled corn, ? and butter for the Northwestern Fur Company in the British Possessions, opposite the United States garrison, the first cargoes they had ever received in trading with the people of the United States. He was on the lakes when the troops were stationed there, and the Oneida Indians were transferred there. After he laid up on the lakes, in the fall, he returned from Cleveland via the new canal to Akron, from there to Dayton in a hack, from Dayton to Cincinnati via canal, and thence by river to New Albany and reached the river and joined the Powhattan. He was in the lower river trade almost twelve years, until he came to Lyons, in June 1835. Here Mr. Buell secured 600 acres of land, located on sections 29, 30, 31 and 32, and for many years followed that most independent of all callings, farming. He began farming in regular old pioneer style, building the customary log cabin on his land, composed of puncheons for the floor and shakes for the roof, and breaking the land as best he could. Having no supplies to carry him through the winter, he made a trip to Saint Louis for flour, meat, potatoes, etc., and after returning he proceeded to devise a way by which he might procure a team. For this purpose he started for Monmouth, Ill., where he heard there were cattle for sale. Going down the river to Cordova, he remained with a Mr. Allen over night, and while they were eating breakfast a party of men came along driving five yoke of oxen, three cows and three calves on their way to Galena. Mr. Buell followed them, and after walking several miles found that they desired to sell their stock. They were brothers and were from Flint Hills, Keokuk; they had lost their wives and two children and were disheartened and wanted to return to Indiana. This just suited our subject, and he at once made a bargain with them, paying $50 for the best yoke, $40 each for the other two, and $20 per head for the cows and calves, with the understanding that the owners were to aid him in getting the stock to his home. They reached the narrows, now Fulton, swam the river and introduced the first domesticated cattle into Clinton County.
Mr. Buell was one of the first County Commissioners elected in Clinton County, and has held the office of Alderman of the city of Lyons. His past has been an honorable as well as a successful one, and to-day he is numbered among the large land-owners of this county, being proprietor of upward of 1,300 acres of good and productive land. He has a fine residence in the city of Lyons, and is there passing the sunset of life in quiet peace and retirement, respected for his sterling worth and integrity and honored for his straightforward and manly dealings with his fellow-men.
There are several pages regarding Elijah Buell in the 1879 History of Clinton County by L. S. Allen also.

Clinton Biographies maintained by John Schulte.
WebBBS 4.33 Genealogy Modification Package by WebJourneymen